Is the U.S. Working to Sabotage Its Nuke Deal with Iran?

According to Asia Times, the U.S. is adopting an Israeli policy platform that could scuttle the prospects of a nuke deal with Iran.

The Barack Obama administration's insistence that Iran discuss its ballistic missile program in the negotiations for a comprehensive nuclear agreement brings its position into line with that of Israel and senators who introduced legislation drafted by the pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC aimed at torpedoing the negotiations.

White House spokesman Jay Carney highlighted the new US demand in a statement Wednesday that the Iranians "have to deal with matters related to their ballistic missile program".

Carney cited United Nations Security Council resolution 1929, approved in 2010, which prohibited any activity related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including missile launches. "So that's completely agreed by Iran in the Joint Plan of Action," he added.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif not only explicitly contradicted Carney's claim that Iran had agreed to discuss ballistic missiles but warned that a US demand for discussion of its missile program would violate a red line for Iran.

"Nothing except Iran's nuclear activities will be discussed in the talks with the [six powers known as the P5+1], and we have agreed on it," he said, according to Iran's IRNA.

The pushback by Zarif implies that the US position would seriously risk the breakdown of the negotiations if the Obama administration were to persist in making the demand.

America Inks Nuke Deal with Iran. Israel & House of Saud Outraged.

They've been itching to bomb Tehran,  just looking for any plausible excuse.   Israel has even been set to go it alone, with Saudi backing of course.  Now they're both fuming that Washington may have deflated their preferred pretext - Iran's nuclear bomb project.

The Geneva agreement between Iran and the United States, China, Russia, Britain, Germany, France and the E.U. is really a package of confidence building steps to pave the way for a comprehensive deal to keep nuclear weapons out of Iran.

Both Israel and Saudi Arabia have benefitted from America's decades-old Cold War with Iran.  It has worked out extremely well for both in everything from military aid to a superpower willing to look the other way at persecution and human rights abuses.   The notion of America possibly normalizing relations with Iran is almost too much to bear.

Israel, looking uncomfortably isolated, has made its position clear, with Binyamin Netanyahu condemning the agreement as a "historic mistake". But the reality is that Israel's ability to attack Iranian nuclear facilities – without overt or covert US help – now looks like a hollow threat, for political reasons as well as the limited capabilities of even its formidable air force. It will also fear renewed pressure to come clean about its own nuclear arsenal – still a regional monopoly.

Elsewhere, the discomfort is most obvious in Saudi Arabia and the smaller Gulf states, which have long seen Iran as a greater threat and strategic rival than Israel. Pejorative talk of a "Zionist-Wahhabi" alliance reflects that. King Abdullah, as revealed by WikiLeaks, famously urged Barack Obama to "cut off the head of the [Iranian] snake". Instead, the US president has done a deal with it. The silence in Riyadh on Sunday morning was thunderously eloquent.

Canada wasted no time following Israel's lead with ForMin Baird proclaiming our country to be "deeply skeptical" of the deal.  Windows were shuttered, blinds were drawn and lights were doused across Washington at the pronouncement.

China Warns Washington to Act on Debt Ceiling

When you have a serious debt problem and your biggest creditor gives you a slap upside the head maybe it's a good time to rethink what's not going right at home.

The Chinese government has conveyed a sharp message to Washington - stop acting like children.

Beijing demanded US President Barack Obama take ''concrete measures'' to ensure the US did not default on its debts.

''Safeguarding the debt is of vital importance to the economy of the US and the world,'' China's vice finance minister Zhu Guangyao said. ''This is the United States' responsibility.''

The warning came as the US neared the October 17 deadline by which Congress must vote to lift the ''debt ceiling'', the legal amount of money the country could borrow.

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If the limit was not raised, the US could default on its loans for the first time in history.

Yet, despite dire warnings from economists and the entreaties of foreign governments, Democrats and Republicans stayed gridlocked and the US government closed for a seventh consecutive day.

 

Reaping the Whirlwind in Egypt

If democracy is to have any chance of surviving in Egypt it's up to the E.U. and the U.S. to move against the generals.   The Egyptian army's counter-coup is now a fait accompli.   Expectations that toppling the democratically-elected Morsi government would pave the way for a secular, non-elected, democratic (???) civilian government have been dashed as the generals moved to consolidate their hold on the country.

It's been suggested that Western governments and media demonized Morsi to condition the public for his ouster.   If so, it worked.

Mubarak was released, Morsi imprisoned.   When secular leader El Baradei resigned in protest at the military's wanton power grab he and his family had to flee to safety in Europe even as the generals ordered his arrest.

Today's New York Times editorial asks, "Who Will Be Left in Egypt?"

On Thursday, with much of the world distracted by Syria, the Egyptian generals and the civilian officials they have appointed extended a countrywide state of emergency for two months. And after overthrowing Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s first freely elected president, two months ago and trying to crush his Muslim Brotherhood allies, security forces have also begun to round up other dissenters, a chilling warning that no Egyptians should feel safe if they dare to challenge authority. 

The 1950s-era state of emergency law, which removes the right to a trial and curbs on police abuses, was for decades a hated symbol of Mr. Mubarak’s excesses. Although the law stayed on the books, the state of emergency was suspended after Mr. Mubarak’s overthrow. The military leadership revived it last month and has extended it until November, citing the security problems that have only grown worse since Mr. Morsi’s ouster.

Just as troubling, the government has moved from singling out the Brotherhood and other Islamists to going after liberal and left-leaning activists and journalists.

There seems to be no end to the draconian controls as the military seeks to restrain the news media, manipulate the courts, misuse security services and restrict civil society groups. If it prevents the Muslim Brotherhood from operating at all, as many expect, it will go even farther than Mr. Mubarak. The process of revising the Constitution that was put in place by the government seems as flawed as the one implemented by Mr. Morsi. The results are almost certain to be regarded by many Egyptians as illegitimate. 

The Times calls for Washington to cut off all aid to the generals.  A similar appeal to the European Union was recently made in The Guardian.  Unfortunately the message has yet to be sent to the men with the funny hats and all the ribbons in Cairo.

While We're Focused on Chemical Warfare

It's interesting how selective the United States can be about weapons of mass destruction given that the U.S. continues to be responsible for widespread and ongoing death and destruction from its own chemical and nuclear weapons.

The gas that Obama-Kerry are blaming on Assad appears to have killed somewhere between a few hundred and a thousand or more Syrians.

In Iraq and Afghanistan, the locals are left to live with the radiation hazard created by American depleted uranium (DU) shells and bullets.  D.U. is known to cause cancers, birth defects and stillbirths and D.U. contamination is believed to persist for decades, if not generations.  D.U. dust particles can be inhaled and then embed in the lungs.

And American chemical weapons are still killing in Vietnam and could be for centuries to come.   Agent Orange, generously air delivered as a defoliant, is estimated to remain lethally effective for up to six centuries.  It gets in the soil and in the ground water.  It too causes cancers, birth defects and stillbirths.  Hang in there, Vietnam, only 500 years to go.

Where was our righteous indignation and call to arms when Israel blasted Gazans with white phosphorus rounds and bombs?  The Liberal leader of the day absolved Israel for that and one of his former aides now demands that Syria be attacked.

How do we explain our indifference to the cluster bomblets that litter southern Lebanon, taking lives almost daily, that were fired into that area by Israel in the hours prior to ceasefire?

This is not an apology for Assad.  He's a brutal, murderous shit in a region full of brutal, murderous shits, among them a number we consider friends.  This is about us and it's about our hypocrisy that undermines any credibility we have in denouncing Assad and calling for strikes against Syria.

When do the Vietnamese, the Iraqis or the Afghans get to retaliate against the Americans for the use of WMDs against them in their homelands?

Arms Race Update - There Goes the Neighbourhood

Singapore's RSS Swordsman

When Obama announced America's military "pivot" out of the Middle East and into Asia-Pacific, it was bound to shake up the neighbourhood - that plus China's rapid military expansion that the pivot is intended to counter.

When China and the U.S. get testy it's guaranteed to stir up the neighbourhood and so it has.  Aviation Week reports that America's "partners" - Australia, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Pakistan, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand - are unlocking their treasuries and going on an armaments buying spree.  For the five-year period of 2013 to 2018, the partners are expected to spend $1.4-trillion on military research and procurement.  That's a 55% jump from the $919-billion spent in the previous five years which, of itself, was far from shabby.

A lot of the spending will be on ships.  The partners are expected to add 263 surface vessels and another 31 submarines atop the substantial number of submarines already acquired over the past five years.

Analysts recognize that China is on edge and already feeling encircled.  All those new ships and subs to be deployed by the partners won't do much to lessen Beijing's concerns.

If you're looking for perspective, consider this.   Even the city-state of Singapore, population 5.3-million, all 710 sq. kms. of it,  has a navy that operates six modern submarines.   Canada, with the longest coastline in the world, has four aging and clapped-out ex-British subs, two of which might actually be able to leave the dock under their own power.

The GOP War on Working Class America

Freshmen GOP - 2010

Paul Krugman recently questioned the sanity of Congressional Republicans who, he contends, have inflicted such a level of dysfunctionality on the federal government as to leave America ungovernable.

Robert Reich, however, seems method in the madness of the "Party of No."

The real answer, I think, is they and their patrons want unemployment to remain high and job-growth to sputter. Why? Three reasons:

First, high unemployment keeps wages down. Workers who are worried about losing their jobs settle for whatever they can get — which is why hourly earnings keep dropping. The median wage is now 4 percent lower than it was at the start of the recovery. Low wages help boost corporate profits, thereby keeping the regressives’ corporate sponsors happy.

Second, high unemployment fuels the bull market on Wall Street. That’s because the Fed is committed to buying long-term bonds as long as unemployment remains high. This keeps bond yields low and pushes investors into equities — which helps boosts executive pay and Wall Street commissions, thereby keeping regressives’ financial sponsors happy.

Third, high unemployment keeps most Americans economically fearful and financially insecure. This sets them up to believe regressive lies — that their biggest worry should be that “big government” will tax away the little they have and give it to “undeserving” minorities; that they should support low taxes on corporations and wealthy “job creators;” and that new immigrants threaten their jobs. 

What Reich is claiming is that the House and Senate Republicans are waging a covert war on working class Americans, blue and white collar, - the masses - for the direct financial benefit of their richest of the rich patrons - the few.

Does Reich's take sound extreme to you?  Maybe you've got a better explanation for the insanity Krugman describes as a willful effort to render America ungovernable.

There's a coup underway in America, one that will oust democracy and install a fascist corporatism in its place.  Congressional Republicans are the spear carriers of the plotters and, so far at least, they appear to be winning.

For a deeper insight on the coup that has befallen America, read Paul Craig Roberts' "In the Grip of Tyranny."

The China Dream

Prominent Chinese military officers are speaking of an east Asia from which the U.S. has been forced out.  And they're hoping to see that reality within 20-years.

Senior Colonel Liu Mingfu, at the People's Liberation Army's National Defence University, told Fairfax Media this week that American strategic influence would be confined ''east of the Pacific midline'' as it is displaced by Chinese power throughout East Asia, including Australia.

Colonel Liu's interpretation of one facet of what the new Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, calls ''a new type of great power relationship'' adds to the uncertainty and anxiety surrounding China's strategic ambitions.

On January 31 James Fanell, intelligence chief for the US Pacific Fleet, which commands six aircraft carrier groups, told a San Diego conference that China's ''expansion into blue waters is largely about countering the Pacific Fleet''.

''And I can tell you, as the Fleet Intelligence Officer, the PLA Navy is going to sea to learn how to do naval warfare,'' said Captain Fanell. ''Make no mistake, the PLA Navy is focused on war at sea and about sinking an opposing fleet.''

"It's the most dangerous strategic crisis that the US has faced, that the world has faced, since the end of the Cold War,'' said Hugh White, former deputy secretary of the Department of Defence, saying China and Japan were drifting closer to a war that could draw in the US.

Colonel Liu, who has warned Australia not to support the Japanese ''wolf'' or American ''tiger'' in a military showdown, does not hold the rank of general or act as an official spokesman.

But his views have been taken more seriously since his fiercely nationalistic book, The China Dream, was allowed back onto the shelves after Mr Xi's elevation in November, when Mr Xi began talking about his own nationalistic ''China Dream''.
 

Murky Mali Mayhem

Afghanistan could be characterized as a perpetual civil war waged by people who range from bad to worse.   Leaders change sides effortlessly, ally with and betray each other routinely.

But Africa's Afghanistan, Mali, and the rest of the war in the Sahara is far more complex, far more confusing.   If Afghanistan is code for "quagmire,"  North Africa is the geopolitical equivalent of the Le Brea Tar Pits.   It's a war that only recently surfaced in our newspapers but it's been going on for decades, confounding Western leaders throughout.

Here's an example.

Over the last few years, Washington's game has elevated flip-flopping to high art. During the second George W Bush administration, [U.S.] Special Forces were very active side by side with the Tuaregs and the Algerians. During the first Obama administration, they started backing the Mali government against the Tuareg. 

Asia Online's Pepe Escobar offers a fascinating yet mind-boggling account of what has really been going on right under our noses and explains how you really can't tell where to place your bets.


As blowback goes, this is just the hors d'oeuvres. And it won't be confined to Mali. It will convulse Algeria and soon Niger, the source of over a third of the uranium in French nuclear power plants, and the whole Sahara-Sahel.

So this new, brewing mega-Afghanistan in Africa will be good for French neoloconial interests (even though Hollande insists this is all about "peace"); good for AFRICOM; a boost for those Jihadis Formerly Known as NATO Rebels; and certainly good for the never-ending Global War on Terror (GWOT), duly renamed "kinetic military operations".

Django, unchained, would be totally at home. As for the Oscar for Best Song, it goes to the Bush-Obama continuum: There's no business like terror business. With French subtitles, bien sur. 

And there's a larger, international dimension to Western intervention in North Africa.  It concerns China.   Beijing fears the West is trying to recolonize Africa in an attempt to contain Chinese expansion into the continent.


[China] has surpassed the US and Europe as Africa's biggest trading partner (US$160 billion) and its businesses invested $15 billion in Africa last year alone. China is hot for minerals in west, north and Central African countries and oil from west Africa. Agricultural products from Chad, Mali, Benin and Burkina Faso supply China's massive textile industry. West Africa is also a key importer of Chinese products, with Nigeria figuring as the lead consumer (42%).

As the Global Times article signals, Beijing understands perfectly well that the West is embarking on a containment strategy in Africa by simply retaking control of the former colonies where China is making headway. The point is, the West cannot compete with China by matching the latter's offer of a broader relationship to the African nations.

China's trans-continental projects are leading the path to the creation of regional economic blocs, which augment the African nations' capacity to create space vis-a-vis the western powers and negotiate better. In sum, the specter that is haunting the West is not so much al-Qaeda as this inability to match China's offer of a package deal and a broader relationship with the African states. 

If there was ever a conflict for Canada to sit out, this might just be it.   That is probably foremost on Steve Harper's mind when he calls from a broad consensus endorsing Canada's support of French intervention.

Global Warming Hits Texas Longhorns

 Those shitkickers in Texas may bellow that global warming is a hoax but tell that to their cattle.   The U.S. "national herd," that peaked in 1975 at 132-million head of cattle (when the U.S. population was just 215-million), dropped to 91-million head this year (population now at 315-million) and is still in decline.

As BBC News reports, the herd of the future will also be smaller and thinner.

The US has been suffering a desperate drought that has affected around 80 % of the agricultural land across the country. It has been so severe that in certain parts, farmers have been forced to get rid of their cattle as they simply don't have any pasture for them to graze on.

The drought has also affected the yields of grain crops, which are estimated to be down around 13 % on last year. And because US farmers depend on grain to fatten their beef herds, this has increased pressure to get rid of cattle.

Adding further complication is the politics. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has had a mandate in place since 2005 that requires a certain percentage of US liquid fuel comes from renewable sources.

In practice this means blending ethanol made from grain with regular gasoline. This year, as the drought persisted, desperate farmers asked the EPA to set the mandate aside to help cut corn prices. They refused.

According to Dr Derrell Peel, from Oklahoma State University the current problems could have long term impacts on US beef. He thinks it is likely there will be changes in how cattle are fed. Less grain, more grass, lighter cattle.

"In general that's the tendency," he told me. "The incentives have changed to a more moderate animal size, we could well see finished weights moderate."

The future for American beef cattle is smaller, thinner, fewer.